Blog Marco

November 5, 2008: It's the day after the tumultuous 2008 U.S. Presidential Election. Barack Obama won the election over John McCain by a fairly sizeable lead. The majority of my energy for the past three months has been spent worrying about this day. Well, that day finally came, and it was… shocking. Really shocking.

My daily online ritual of obsessively checking presidential polls to make sure Obama was still ahead seemed pointless now, and I watched CNN & MSNBC not knowing why. The state of urgency I felt gave way to a state of emptiness. I felt great about it, don’t get me wrong, but I felt empty. I spent the past few months ignoring my real problems, and the shock and relief I felt gave way to PANIC! The economy is in the tank, my hours got cut at work, and I have debt up to my ears. Seems this is happening to everybody.

Before the election, people grit their teeth, clenched their fists and asked “What will the results of this election be? Can we get this over with?”

The transition of power from sitting president George W. Bush and the new president-elect Barack Obama occurred on November 10. The meeting was private, so no one really knows of what exactly was discussed during this crucial meeting. I can imagine that it would involve something among the lines of President-elect Obama pointing out the faults of the Bush administration since 2001, and President Bush stammering to try to cover them up or justify them as "God's plan gone terribly wrong, due to diabolic forces here on Earth."

Meanwhile, First Lady Laura Bush guided Michelle Obama on a tour of the residential quarters of the White House. I wonder if Laura Bush asked Michelle Obama, "So about that 'first time in my adult life' comment... what exactly did you mean by that? I don’t want me defending you on national TV to be a waste."

No blood was shed. Both Bushes and Obamas came out alive, and smiling. George W. Bush said of the meeting that it was "friendly” and “relaxed," two adjectives that are not usually worded together after a meeting with Bush.

After fourteen years, eleven band members, and 13 million dollars, Guns N' Roses is slated to release their long-awaited album, Chinese Democracy, right in time for Thanksgiving. Geffen Records confirmed that the record would, at long last, be released on November 23 in the United States. Axl Rose's long-awaited "opus" will be the first release of exclusively new material by the trademark Guns N' Roses since 1993's The Spaghetti Incident.

Guess who could care less? Me. Five years ago, I’ll admit it, I was eager for the completion of this Chinese Democracy record, having been a Guns N' Roses fan since I was 4 in 1989. Every year that seemed to go by, Axl Rose kept saying "It's almost done." If he said this in 2002, and the record was not released until 2008, six years still to go does not mean that it's almost done. Since then, my tastes have gravitated away from classic rock and big-ego rockstars, such as Rose, and I just don’t care anymore. Plus, the record has none of the original band members (sans Rose), and you just can't have a GNR record without Slash, his top hat, his mop of black hair, and his trademark guitar sound. Give me the first half of Appetite for Destruction, and maybe nine or ten songs from the bloated Use Your Illusion double album, and that's all the GNR I'll ever need!